Gaynor Hartnell, chief executive of the Renewable Transport Fuel Association, said the mandate, in combination with guaranteed pricing, “will see the UK start to produce SAF within the next couple of years” but gave no specific date.
She added: “Many of the plants our members will build will be ground-breaking, first-of-a-kind installations. The UK policy aims specifically to encourage SAF made from wastes, which presents an opportunity for innovation and ultimately the export of technology and expertise.”
The DfT said the mandate would incentivise the use of waste “like sawdust and bark from forests” to produce fuel, while placing a cap on fuel primarily made from cooking oil, the cheapest and most developed SAF source.
However, Airlines UK said the government had put a delay on capping waste-fat-produced SAF and had increased the amount that could be used.
Earlier this week, Dr Andy Jefferson, programme director of Sustainable Aviation, an industry think tank, told an Abta aviation conference that while SAF was “very much about cooking oil, It’s not what the industry wants, we want more waste-based SAF in the UK and power-to-liquid (fuel derived from carbon capture)”.
Environmentalists argue an SAF mandate will not cap emissions and will merely require a minority of jet fuel to be from feedstock other than fossil fuel.